Being Together

I'm an only child, so it's been fun watching the sibling interaction between my kids. For the most part, it's quite loving. There's toy sharing issues and Benjamin can play a little too rough at times, but in general the love between them is very evident. It's also a lot of fun as she gets older and they have more and more things they can do together.

They love to read together.


They love to be together outside.


They both adore playing in the water.





They both love their bikes. Today I was pushing Bella on her bike and Benjamin said, "Wait for me! I ride with Bella too!" and rode his bike along side.


I love this time of year in Michigan. It's not too hot yet and there's really a lot to do outside. So, in addition to simply hanging out with each other, we've been enjoying the great weather and getting together with friends a lot too. It's crazy to think we'll have been here 4 years this summer. We've made some great friends in that time.

Last week, we went to Cranbrook Science Museum to see their dinosaur exhibit. A little too advanced for a 2 year old, but Benjamin and Max managed to find things to suit their interests too. The blocks were there to show how to build an arch. This was much more fun.



They actually did what they were supposed to do here and I was quite impressed. They were to match up the blocks acording to the shapes on the board and they got it perfect on the first try. Way to go boys!


We've also gone swimming. Bella got a new swim suit from a friend of mine and wore it proudly to the pool. (Sorry this pic is pre-pool. I had no safe spot to keep my camera pool-side, so I left it in the locker.)


We've also continued meeting with my German mom's club each week. Yesterday Benjamin found a kids' book in English and suddenly it was English class around me. So cute.



Just a final note - this is Bella every time she wakes up - whether in the morning or at nap time. The first thing she does is reach for her giraffe and her rhino that sit on her dresser and cuddle them. It really distresses her when they aren't there to greet her. She is so cute with her bed hair and her big grin. Then she'll press the animals between her and me and lay her head contendely on my chest. It seems to be her favorite moment of the day.

Happy Birthday Isabella!

Our little girl is 1 year old! So to celebrate, we had honey wheat muffins and peanut butter sandwiches! :) Yummy! No more forbidden foods! She mostly just had fun smearing her lunch on my mom's black pants, though. We love you Isabella!

Not Another One!

It seems we have another toddler on the loose in our house.

Proof:
1. an obsession with sand and water and their combination






2. a need to tear open and empty every cupboard possible


3. an unstoppable urge to climb every climbable object
4. a refusal to leave electronic gadgets unexamined
5. an inability to sit still, whether on a lap or in someone's arms.

Yikes, the proof is irrefutable - Isabella is becoming a toddler! She's going to be 1 on Saturday and she's showing all the classic symptoms. When I found her standing on the widowsill last week, looking out excitedly at the flowers in the front yard, I knew I was in for it. I've had to start keeping my bathroom door closed or I routinely hear the splish splash of a little hand in the toilet. Life as we know it will never be the same again. I have to say, though, I'm loving it. She is so full of life and joy. It makes me happy to watch her, even if I'm sooo sick of washing toilet water (and other unmentionables) off her hands!





As for Benjamin, we are in another round of defiance. This week his chosen defiance method is refusal to nap. We've had these before and I'd be willing to give up nap time if I wasn't so absolutely sure that he really needed them. Here he is after fighting me for an hour, insisting that he wasn't tired.


I think this picture of him, proudly sitting on the tractor - behind the rope intended to keep people off, and next to the red and white sticker that says "please keep off" is the perfect symbol of what we're going through. Alas, it's not the first time, and it won't be the last.

Is My Camera Haunted?

I took about 20 pictures this afternoon of my children and their friends. I had the intention of sharing them with the other parents, since I was the only one with a camera (how the tides have shifted!!) but when I went to download them tonight, here's what they all looked like:


"What's wrong with my camera?" I exclaimed. "Why does it look like there's a ghost in every picture?!" Kelly grabbed the camera and opened the lense. Tiny toddler fingerprints all over it. Grrrr. Apprently dropping the camera isn't the only issue I have to watch out for.

Happy Easter!

In our attempts to find an Easter egg hunt that didn't conflict with naptime, we attended two different events (and were thwarted both times). Too long of a story to explain. But the upside is that we got multiple Easter Bunny pics. I couldn't get a smile out of Benjamin, likely due to the nap issue, but he was more than willing to pose. I should have gotten Bella in the pics too, but both times that the opportunity arose, she and Kelly were elsewhere.

Despite the focus on the bunny and the eggs today, may we always remember the true reason for this holiday. As Benjamin says, we must "focus on Jesus." I am so thankful for my Savior. Here's a wonderful link a friend sent me today that does a wonderful job of bearing testimony: None Were With Him

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Benjamin was outside playing today when he informed Kelly that he needed to go potty. He came in, asked for help getting his pants and diaper off, then sat on the toilet and went, all without coercion. It was better than Christmas. The light at the end of the tunnel just got a little brighter! Of course, it's not perfect yet, so I laid him down in another room and put on another diaper, leaving Bella unattended for a few moments. Unbeknownst to me, she apparently heard the cheering in the bathroom and went in to see for herself what the cause of the party was. When I finished replacing Benjamin's diaper a few minutes later and went to check on her, this is what I found:


So I may be saving money on diapers soon, but it will be made up for in the cost of toilet paper.

Mud Pie, Anyone?

Liberally add water, mix, then sit down. In other words, why I bring a change of clothes everywhere we go.


Notice how his friends Danny and Paul are carefully outside the sandbox playing, while he's sitting smack in the sludge? This from the same boy who hates getting food on his hands. How does that work?

How Did You Like Conference?

I look forward to General Conference for weeks prior. However, it's not the actual moment of conference I await with barely contained excitement. It's the talks which I will listen to hours later on the internet, after the kids are in bed. Because during conference, this is what we're doing:








I'm assuming we're not the only ones who have a reverence problem. Bella is okay, but watching conference with Benjamin is impossible. He's good for about 3 minutes and then his ability to listen in peace is exhausted. We are then faced with a choice - A. spend the next 2 hours shushing him and getting upset, thereby not hearing the talks anyway or B. having fun family time together and watching the whole thing in peace from 8pm until midnight. So, because we're no masochists, we chose option B and had a wonderful relaxing 2 sessions back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday evening. I saw some very clear recurring themes in what they discussed and certainly came away with some clear ideas on how to improve my life. However, ironically there was one talk on the very reason thing I'd been dealing with that day - Sis. Lifferth's talk on respect and reverence. She gave a wonderful talk on teaching children respect and reverence. I had some clear insights while listening but still, I was left with a "but how?" feeling. She made the point of having reasonable expectations. Expecting a two year old to sit still for a 2 hour conference session isn't reasonable, I understand that, but how about a 5 minute family home evening lesson or a 1 minute family prayer? How about a 60 minute sacrament meeting or a 10 minute family dinner? I can't remember a Sunday where I didn't attend "the church of the foyer" as one friend calls it. Family home evenings have also become increasingly difficult. It's exacerbated by the fact that we have it 30 minutes before bed time, but Kelly's not home any earlier, so I don't know how to fix that part of it.

Until I figure it out or he grows up and solves this issue for himself, I think the point that I need for remember is her statement that reverence is based in love of the Savior and so the teaching thereof should also be based in love. Teaching reverence through harshness merely begets resentment. We must be the examples and pray that as the child grows, he will follow. I think I need to learn patience as he learns self-control and we'll both end up at reverence.

Happy Birthday Kelly!

It's Kelly's birthday today. We had a party last night and borrowed a friend's Wii for the occassion. We had so much fun. Then today before we had to return it, we let Benjamin play with it. He has never played a video game on anything other than a computer with a mouse, so this was a brand new experience for him and he loved it. He needed a little help getting the hang of it, but his enthusiasm was contagious. We played clear until bedtime. This really is the perfect way to do it - borrow the system, play until you're sick of it, and then return it. Although I really kind of miss it already. :)



These pictures are mostly for my mom. She sent Bella this adorable rain coat.



To end, a picture of the macho man on his scooter.

I Love To See The Temple

Benjamin's nursery lesson today was on temples and eternal families and so Kelly offered to take the kids to the temple after church. We've taken the kids to the Bountiful temple (where we were married) and to the Salt Lake temple, but never to the Detroit temple. It was raining like crazy (and later turned to snow) but they had a great time. What cuties. Benjamin was bubbly with excitement over his "walk around the temple" and seeing "where Jesus lives." It truly is such a blessing to have one so close.

Growing Up

My little Isabella isn't so little anymore. I look at her every day and see a slightly different girl than the day before. She's so amazing. She's such a social child and loves being the center of attention. She had 4 little girls gathered around her at the library today and she was loving every minute of it. She was smiling and waving. It was so cute. Her other faves are yogurt, stuffed animals, and windows. All three elicit squeals of delight. Especially the window. She'll sit/stand in front of the back sliding glass door for as long as I'll let her. I finally wrestled a clip into her hair today for the first time and wanted to take a picture. By the way, the clip lasted just as long as the photo shoot did and then Benjamin said she looked like Ava, another baby in our ward who often wears cute clips, and ripped it out because he wanted to wear it. However, the cuter aspect to the pictures wasn't her hair, but her facial expressions as she observed what was going on outside.



She's also developed a real spunk. She'll let you know when she's not pleased with something - like when you take away the paper towel roll she was gnawing on. She'll also get the slyest looks on her face when she's about to get mischievous - like unroll the toilet paper or splash in the toilet. Here's Queen Isabella enjoying her stylin' rides at Toys-R-Us. I love her expression in the second picture.



And she's already weaning herself off the bottle. She's been grabbing at Benjamin's sippy cup a lot, so I've been giving her a cup occasionally and she's loved it! So cute. We love you Isabella.

We Love Fingerpaint!

I have the problem that because Bella is so far behind Benjamin developmentally, that I often discount what things she can do and put her in my mental "baby" category - ie. unable to participate in most activities I do with Benjamin. So, up until now craft time has been exclusively during Bella's nap time. But now she's down to only one nap a day and it's usually during Benjamin's nap time (when fate is smiling on me) thus, it was time for a paradigm shift. So, today's craft time came after nap time and I decided to start small - fingerpaint. Fingerpaint, though technically non-toxic, still seemed like a poor source of nutrition (and I knew with 100% certainty she'd try to eat it) so I opted for a more food-based paint. Could use pudding, but that would require me to make some, and my philosophy on craft time is that it should be fun for everyone - not just them - and cooking is in all cases very un-fun. I know - pudding - it's milk and powder - how hard is it? Don't judge. I'm sure there's things you struggle with that I don't, so let's just let it go. So instead, I decided to pull out the unused frosting containers from my halloween party. They were still perfectly viable - further proof that frosting is really best scraped off of the cake rather than ingested. Bright colored goo in pink, red, blue, and yellow. I put some on Bella's booster seat tray and some on Benjamin's placemat and let them loose. Bella got right into it. She mixed and smacked and clapped her hands. She'd actually been "painting" for quite a while before the taste testing began.


And yet nothing got in her hair or anywhere else. I was impressed. Not like Benjamin's first food experiment:


She seemed to have a great time. I really need to stop automatically counting her out.


Some cute Benjamin pics from the past couple days:



He's really becoming quite imaginitive. It's fun to see.

The Blind Leading the Blind

I was cooking last night while Benjamin and Isabella played together and I over heard this:

BENJAMIN: Say Mama!
BELLA: Mama
BENJAMIN: Good! Try again. Mama.
BELLA: Mama.
BENJAMIN: Yay Bella! Good job! Say it again. Mama.
BELLA: Mama.

How cute is that? My little boy who just barely started speaking himself is already trying to teach his sister. He better watch out or she might catch up with him. :) I've noticed that he's always so happy for her when she accomplishes something. This morning she went down the stairs by herself while I was out of the room and I only knew she did it because I heard Benjamin cheering and congratulating her at the bottom and then he yelled out, "Mom! Bella down stairs all by herself!" He'll also repeatedly point out to me when she's standing or walking along something. "Look! Bella standing! Look mom!" So cute. Almost makes up for all the times he rips away the very thing she's pulling herself up on because it's "mine!"